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2007
'The Senator and the Socialite: The True Story of
America's First Black Dynasty,' by Lawrence Otis
Graham
Eric S. Yellin
University of Richmond, [email protected]
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Yellin, Eric. "'The Senator and the Socialite: The True Story of America's First Black Dynasty,' by Lawrence Otis Graham." Review of
The Senator and the Socialite: The True Story of America's First Black Dynasty. H-Net, October 2007. http://www.h-net.org/reviews/
showrev.php?id=13737.
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Lawrence Otis Graham. e Senator and the Socialite: e True Story of America’s First Black Dynasty. New York:
HarperCollins, 2006. xxiv + 455 pp. $27.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-06-018412-4; $15.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-06-098513-4.
Reviewed by Eric S. Yellin (Department of History, University of Richmond)
Published on H-DC (October, 2007)
e careers and lives of Blanche K. Bruce, Mississippi
landowner and U.S. senator, and his prominent wife,
Josephine, an educator and politician in her own right,
were emblematic of the promise and tragedy of postCivil War America. Aer the war, the United States saw
the growth of a generation of ambitious and successful
black politicians and entrepreneurs. Some were former
slaves, like Blanche, others the advantaged scions of antebellum free blacks, like Josephine. Americans also witnessed their demise at the hands of white supremacists
at the turn of the twentieth century. Racial discrimination and an unsteady economy impeded rising as well
as established African Americans, most of who struggled
mightily against political, social, and economic suffocation. Some managed to enjoy relative success in the segregated niches of Chicago, New York City, and the District of Columbia. Many more discovered what it meant
to live as second-class American citizens.
wealthy. e Willsons soon moved to Cleveland, where
they enjoyed the benefits of financial and social security,
including easy relations with the city’s wealthy white
community.
bloodline connection to Bruce, Blanche was taught to
read and was well prepared for freedom when he moved
to Kansas in 1863. Josephine’s early years were less dramatic and also less typical for antebellum African Americans. Born in 1853 to free blacks Joseph and Elizabeth Willson of Philadelphia, Josephine was privileged
by her parents’ prosperity–Joseph was one of the city’s
first black dentists and both parental families were quite
Roscoe, lacking the political skills and opportunities
of his father, did not manage to add much to the family’s
prestige or wealth. He did use his connection to the controversial but powerful Booker T. Washington to assume
the superintendency of D.C.’s segregated black schools, a
job that Tuskegee had maneuvered out of the expectant
hands of W. E. B. Du Bois. Du Bois’s aacks on Washington’s accommodation of white supremacy, which he
Blanche and Josephine made the most of their relative advantages. Blanche taught school and took classes
at Oberlin College. Recognizing the political opportunities of Reconstruction for ambitious black men, he moved
to Mississippi in the late 1860s and joined the ascendant state Republican Party. Hard work, well-connected
friends, and patronage appointments yielded both a fortune and statewide political prominence. Skillfully using his Republican connections, Bruce earned election
by the Mississippi legislature to the U.S. Senate in 1874.
Bruce was the first African American elected to a full
senate term. (He would serve only one term.) Marriage in 1878 to the elite and graceful Josephine, who
had earned notability as the first black teacher in the
Lawrence Otis Graham aempts to tell the important Cleveland school district, firmly established the Bruces
story of the Bruces and their legacy in e Senator and the as members of what Willard B. Gatewood has called the
Socialite: e True Story of America’s First Black Dynasty. “aristocrats of color.”[1]
Starting his story before the Civil War, Graham follows
e accrual of advantages like wealth, education,
the “First Black Dynasty” through its ultimate fall from and political connections ensured the Bruces’ security
grace in mid-twentieth-century New York City. As with in Washington, D.C., even as white supremacists behis previous bestseller, Our Kind of People: Inside Amer- gan wreaking violence and havoc across the South with
ica’s Black Upper Class (1999), Graham takes on the am- increasing audacity aer Reconstruction. As southern
bitious task of capturing the meaning and importance of blacks were losing the right to vote, and, in many cases,
an underappreciated group of Americans.
the right to life and liberty, the couple’s son Roscoe ConBlanche Kelso Bruce was born in 1841, the son of kling Bruce, named for the racially liberal New York senPolly, a slave woman, and her owner, Peis Bruce, in ator, headed off to Philips Exeter Academy and then HarPrince Edward County, Virginia. Favored because of his vard College.
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published famously in e Souls of Black Folk (1903), were
becoming increasingly popular among D.C.’s black educated middle class. Roscoe’s fidelity to Tuskegee and his
inability to win friends brought down his administration
and forced his family out of the capital. Roscoe’s wife,
Clara, a smart, former Radcliffe student, aempted to rescue the family (and hersel) by earning a law degree at
Boston University. e first black editor of a law review
in U.S. history, Clara’s law career was blocked by the
lack of opportunity for black lawyers in early twentiethcentury America.
erally expect some documentary evidence for such revisionism. It is worth noting here that Graham’s bibliography, which is extensive but does not compensate
for the lack of citations, omits Constance McLaughlin
Green’s Pulitzer Prize-winning scholarship on Washington.[2] ough dated, Green’s work would still have provided much needed context.
Factual errors mar the work in several places. Graham confuses the famous Washington minister Francis Grimke with Archibald Grimke, a Harvard-educated
lawyer who lived in Boston, and refers to Paul Laurence Dunbar as a “Harlem Renaissance poet.” (Dunbar,
who died in 1906, did most of his writing in Ohio and
Washington.) Such mistakes can usually be forgiven, but
they become serious when combined with the previously
mentioned concerns about methodology.
Roscoe and Clara’s children, Roscoe Jr., Clara Jr., and
Burrill, also seemed incapable of capitalizing on their
family’s fame and ultimately faded into obscurity. Clara
Jr. did so as a white woman, using her light complexion
to “pass” for the rest of her life. Outside of occasional
scandals, the Bruce family disappeared from the headDespite these problems, readers should admire Gralines. It is a sad story that Graham sometimes tells with
ham’s honesty about his subjects. is book, while a
real force and feeling.
celebration of black ambition and success, is no simple
Ultimately, however, e Senator and the Socialite is hagiography. Blanche could be frustratingly passive in
too lightly documented and undercontextualized to be a the face of racism; Josephine bordered on racism herrich source on this important subject. e limited foot- self in her suspicion of dark-skinned African Americans;
notes offer too lile insight into the material Graham Roscoe was obnoxious, snobbish, and self-destructive;
has used. otations are frequently chosen for no clear and Roscoe’s children were spoiled. e unsavory asreason and do not support Graham’s more serious argu- pects of the Bruces raise a question that Graham does not
ments. Too oen, even these verbatim quotations do not address: If the family was widely disliked by their peers,
have citations, and, in almost all cases, important sec- as was the case in Philadelphia, Mississippi, Washington,
ondary historical work goes unmentioned. Perhaps Gra- D.C., and New York City, then how did its members mainham and his publisher have tried to limit the scholarly ap- tain their influence and power? ough not necessarparatus that might distract lay readers. Nevertheless, one ily a problem for a successful businessman, unpopularity
would hope that even nonexperts would welcome proper would presumably harm greatly the family of “the senator and a socialite.” For example, Roscoe Bruce le Washcitations.
ington in disgrace in 1921, banished to an unglamorous
At several points, the limited citations can be espejob in West Virginia. Graham tells this part of the Bruce
cially frustrating. For example, Graham mischaracterizes
family history with real drama, yet insists that the Bruces
the racial circumstances of post-Reconstruction Washcontinued to enjoy considerable prestige. Graham exington, D.C. “[Josephine] had always lived in cities where
plains that Josephine still had a coterie of powerful black
wealthy blacks and whites mixed,” Graham writes of the
Washingtonians, but does not identify these remaining
Bruces’ move to D.C. in 1878, and “[t]he racial aitudes
friends. Either Graham has overemphasized the degree
of Washington citizens, and the treatment accorded by
to which Roscoe burned bridges or he has not provided
white congressmen and their wives, would take considerenough background and context for Washington’s social
able adjustment for Josephine” (p. 90). ough no idyllic
and political scene.
bastion of egalitarianism, Washington was not the Deep
It is in this area, that of the Bruce family’s interactions
South in the 1880s, and upper-class white and black people did mix to a surprising extent. Many African Amer- with other black Americans, that Graham offers some
icans found real economic and social opportunity in the theses. Blanche and Josephine, argues Graham, actively
city, and northern Democratic and Republican congress- separated themselves from ordinary African Americans–
men were generally considered friendly to black Wash- even family members–and Roscoe got the message from
ingtonians. Perhaps this prevailing view of Washing- his parents that he was beer than most people. Roscoe’s
ton in the 1870s is wrong, and Graham has a beer un- children also believed this, but, Graham suggests, they
derstanding of the period. Nonetheless, historians gen- could not back up their assumed superiority with in2
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tellect or success. Lay readers will probably wonder done: provide deep insight into the development, strugwhether Graham sees the Bruces’ antisocial behavior or gles, and triumphs of one of America’s most important
the rising tide of American racism as the cause of the fam- families.
ily’s tragedies. No doubt both worked against them, but
Notes
Graham offers few real conclusions.
[1]. Willard B. Gatewood, Aristocrats of Color: e
For historians, Graham’s work will prove tantaliz- Black Elite, 1880-1920 (Bloomington: Indiana University
ing. e Bruce family has a fascinating history: Why not Press, 1990), x.
give this history its due with credibility and evidence?[2]. Constance McLaughlin Green, Washington, 2
ose less concerned with historiographical conventions, vols. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1962-63),
like evidence and citations, may find the tragic–and well- and Constance McLaughlin Green, e Secret City: A Hiswrien–last third of e Senator and the Socialite a good tory of Race Relations in the Nation’s Capital (Princeton:
read, though the book’s plodding opening chapters and Princeton University Press, 1967). Green won the 1963
repetitious middle section may lose many casual readers. Pulitzer Prize in history for the first volume of the former work.
[3]. Gatewood, Aristocrats of Color; David Levering
Readers interested in a solid history of the experiences of privileged black Americans aer the Civil Lewis, W. E. B. Du Bois, 2 vols. (New York: Henry Holt,
War should still consult the works of Willard Gatewood, 1993-2000); and Dickson D. Bruce Jr., Archibald Grimke:
David Levering Lewis, and Dickson D. Bruce Jr.[3] In Portrait of a Black Independent (Baton Rouge: Louisiana
particular, Bruce does the work one wishes Graham had State University Press, 1993).
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Citation: Eric S. Yellin. Review of Graham, Lawrence Otis, e Senator and the Socialite: e True Story of America’s
First Black Dynasty. H-DC, H-Net Reviews. October, 2007.
URL: hp://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=13737
Copyright © 2007 by H-Net, all rights reserved. H-Net permits the redistribution and reprinting of this work for
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